FAR EAST OUTLOOK

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 October 1941, Page 6

FAR EAST OUTLOOK

EXTREMELY STRAINED STATEMENT BY COLONEL KNOX. DANGER OF COLLISION. (By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 12.50 p.m.) WASHINGTON, October 24. “The situation in the Far East is extremely strained,” said the Secretary for the Navy (Colonel Knox) at a Press conference. “We are satisfied that the Japanese do not intend giving up their expansion plans, if they pursue them, a collision is inevitable.” A Honolulu message reports that an American-born Japanese, when he arrived from Japan in the Tatuta Maru, said that Japan was an armed and rationed camp, ready for war, though food was short. When they left, a week ago, war fever was high and the people were prepared for air raids and sea attacks. He believed a conflict was inevitable. New shortages of foodstuffs and new restrictions almost daily Were complicating living. An open suggestion by the "Japan Times and Advertiser” that Japan should offer Thailand her “assistance is causing deep concern in authoritative circles' in Thailand, states a Bangkok message. Continued Tokio references to the alleged success of antiJapanese political plotters in Thailand are also viewed with concern, because of the inherent threat which these suggestions carry to Thailand’s neutrality policy., Thailand has repeatedly declared that she will uphold her neutrality, even to the point of war, in the event

of aggression from any quarter. A Chinese Central News Agency report from Hong Kong states that the Japanese have arrested more than a thousand young Chinese in Canton in the last fortnight in an effort to counteract growing resistance. Many of the prisoners were tortured in an attempt to make them divulge the secrets of the anti-Japanese movement.